Threats
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A potentially devastating virus has been discovered for the first time in Pacific salmon stocks of British Columbia. The disease, infectious salmon anemia (ISA), has devastated Atlantic salmon and salmon farms in Chile, but how the virus will effect Pacific salmon is unknown. The fear is that it could be devastating all along the west…
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Release of 32 bighorn underway- This release by the Nevada Department of Wildlife, Nevada Bighorns Unlimited and private individuals has taken 20 years to be accomplished. The stock for the release came from Nevada to the south around Stonewall Mountain near Tonapah. They are desert, not Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. Bighorn are now back in…
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European Commission’s plans to class fuel tar sand fuels as “highly polluting” Canada isn’t happy at all about the EU’s plan to classify all tar sand development as “highly polluting.” Such a classification does have teeth. It is more than an insult. Environmental groups are happy because this development in Canada is in fact extremely…
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Lawsuit tries to permanently derail plan to let bison use Gardiner Basin in the winter. Early last spring bison were suddenly allowed to use the Gardiner Basin just north of Yellowstone Park for the first time in over a generation. State, federal and tribal officials signed what was to be a landmark agreement to let…
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The much touted vaccine that the woolgrowers have been promoting as a way to make bighorn and domestic sheep compatible is not even close to ready. While bighorn sheep are dying in Montana and Nevada, and while the herds in Hell’s Canyon and the Salmon River Canyon are suffering the long lasting effects of previous…
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Last night Idaho Public Television’s “Dialogue” program had a round table discussion about the bighorn sheep issue and Congressman Mike Simpson’s disease rider that is attached to the Fiscal Year 2012 – House Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill. On the panel, moderated by Marcia Franklin, was Margaret Soulen Hinson, president, American Sheep Industry Association; Neil Thagard, former president,…
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Yesterday it was reported by Rocky Barker that Idaho Representative Mike Simpson believes that the bighorn and grazing riders are likely to make it into law. The riders, attached to the Fiscal Year 2012 – House Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill, would essentially do two things. First, the Bighorn Rider would shut down any process that the BLM…
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If climate change will make an area now covered with evergreens ideal as an oak savanna ecosystem in the near future, should we start building the savannas now? Discounting the well funded right wing climate change skeptics, most folks realize that what is now evergreen forest will turn into deciduous forest as things warm. This…